There’s nothing more annoying than hearing someone on social media say they can write better than someone and not backing up with an actual piece of evidence. I call these people the “pretend” writers. The “I’m going to” or “If I had time” writers.

Let me make something crystal fucking clear. You either write or you don’t. Forget the promise or planning. Sit down and do it. Life passes you by while you are busy making plans to do something else. Opportunity and credibility also run past if you keep pretending.

I ran across this from one of my biggest trolls on Twitter last night.

I look at the columnists now like Ortiz, BenFred and Hochman. I absolutely could write better columns on sports in STL than any of them

— Nicholas Ebmeier (@ShortOfDaybreak) June 11, 2016

Let me introduce you to Nick and what a troll is. A troll on social media is someone who doesn’t engage yet merely stops by to pick at an old scab and then run away. They pop up when they feel it’s time to hate and then disappear. They rarely wish to have a conversation. That would be too much. For example, this is the 15th or so time Nick has complained about these writers at the Post Dispatch. Keep in mind Jose Ortiz, Ben Frederickson, and Benjamin Hochman are all on social media and have accounts but Nick didn’t want to tag them for fear of actual engagement. He lists their names and trolls them. Nick is a coward. Don’t be like Nick.

The above tweet angers me most. “I absolutely could” is a big statement for a man who hasn’t written an article(or at least one that I could find) in the past year. He’s pretender.

This is in no way a slap to the people who use Twitter to engage in sports talk but don’t want to write articles. Twitter is there for sports fans to come together and talk ball. Sometimes, it gets ugly and rarely is there a generally respective conversation, but it’s there for the consumption. If you wish to go on and tweet out 140 character batches of juice and depart, that’s fair. If you make a bold statement that you could write better than this person or that person, back it the fuck up or go away for good.

I offered Nick the chance to come write for STL Sports Minute, a voice of the fan type site that is there to provide a platform for ambitious sports writers who can’t crack the PD, USA Today, CBS News, or what have you. It is the voice of the fan. Ranting zone.

Prove it. Write for @stlsportsminute. https://t.co/tOy8rlKLXM

— Dan Buffa (@buffa82) June 11, 2016

Nick didn’t respond until today. Here lies his weak sauce response to my offer.

@buffa82 @stlsportsminute If we take the time to write, we want it to be a site that people read, Dan.

— Nicholas Ebmeier (@ShortOfDaybreak) June 11, 2016

HA! STLSM doesn’t collect the hits of a site like Viva El Birdos but when there’s content coming out and it’s shared properly, it does get read. Yard Barker network and Baseball Reference picks up the articles and I RT every article that comes out of there. This is a weak lame excuse. It aims to extract Nick from his bold statement. Since he is a troll and useless to social media, I pounced.

Heres an example of a “I could write” instead of “I will write”. Weak sauce. https://t.co/MI8ri5VZ5b

— Dan Buffa (@buffa82) June 11, 2016

This isn’t the first time someone has said they could do something and ended up doing nothing at all. It’s a sign of our modern times. These wannabe aspiring wonder clowns who think they have what it takes and flop instead. It’s easy to fire a 140 character bullet than walk to the front of the room and deal.

I don’t pretend to write. I write. I have written articles for five years on the internet and many sites. I have sites that have asked for me to write for them. Respected sites run by good people. It didn’t matter if I worked 45-50 hours in a hot sweaty ass warehouse. I wrote. It doesn’t matter if I have a home and kid to look after, because I’ll still write. No matter what, I write.

I write more articles than most. Name another writer who writes about baseball, hockey, football, boxing, MMA, movies, television, music, real life, and real people. I do it all and back up the promise. Some like it. Some don’t. That’s not my job. My job is to fulfill a promise and provide content. I can’t tell someone to like it. I can only provide it every day. I’m not even close to being burned out either. I’ve written nearly 250 columns since March 1st. Who else has done that?

Message here is clear. If you say you are going to do something or that you can do something better than others, fucking do it or walk away. When someone offers you a site to prove it and you decline, please walk away.

Don’t be like Nick. Big hype with no follow through. It’s weak. Don’t be weak.

Meanwhile, I’ll be over here per usual…